Saturday, December 31, 2011

2011 has probably been the most dynamic year since I was born (1968), maybe with the partial exception of the 1989-91 period. While we have seen some changes for good, much has been for the worse... much worse.

Fukushima, what can be worse?

Fukushima I after the accidents

The earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe that began in March 11 are some of the worst that has happened this year. And the worst is not that a nuclear power plant has gone bersek, that is already a huge problem in itself, but that the nuclear and civilian authorities are essentially ignoring the problem.

When, in 1986, Chernobyl went awry, and after a few days of secrecy and uncertainty, the problem was addressed with all the seriousness it deserved and, if not solved (radiation is forever), at least reasonably patched. But in Japan we are seeing the ugliest reality of Capitalism: people are left to die and lied about what's going on, only because the nuclear lobby wants (there are both economic and military interests in that overtly dirty business).

We already saw something very similar in 2010 in the USA with the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. But while the oil disaster is one of widespread poisoning and ecological destruction, which may be more or less corrected in the long run, the nuclear one has no possible correction and can only get worse as time passes (at the very best it will not improve in any humanly applicable time frame).

We are effectively destroying Earth forever with nuclear energy and Fukushima catastrophe is a major and extremely sad milestone in this road to self-destruction. However our institutions only look elsewhere: the power derived from the yellow cake is too big for the oligarchic elites to abandon. At any cost and certainly at the cost of your life, which does not matter to them at all.

Huge Tokyo anti-nuclear demo on Sep 19

While the usual propaganda media are mostly oblivious to this reality, as they only copy-paste, almost to the letter, what high officials say (so good for the notion of "free media"), the destruction keeps extending and any neutral dispassionate analysis would declare much of North Honsu inhabitable and consider serious radiation containment measures for the rest of the World, notably West Japan, NE Asia, Hawaii and NW America.

But common sense has been banished from the decision making process (partial exceptions are Germany and Italy, which decided to eradicate nuclear power as soon as possible), so it is very possible that Humankind is doomed. Certainly it is much worse today than a year ago, thanks to the Nuclear Party.

A year of revolutions

We learned that Arabs are not just passive subjects

It began in 2010 with the French general strike, which threatened to become indefinite and to cut oil supplies, showing the power of the Working Class, when organized and ready to fight, remains as strong as ever.

Then, still in 2010, some nobody from the South, Mohamed Bouazizi, was abused just a bit more than he could bear: his fruit stand was expropriated by a policewoman who wanted a greater bribe... and he set up himself in fire. And with him all Tunisia and then North Africa and then all the "Arab World" and beyond were also set on fire.

It was obvious long before than Arabs were extremely tired of suffering abusive dictatorships. They still are. Many tyrannies remain to be shattered to pieces, beginning with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain - but these swim on petrodollars and have managed to stay afloat by the moment, not without resorting to massive repression, notably in Bahrain.

We learned that Tahrir means Freedom

We could also witness (or take part in some cases at least) in how real revolutionary processes do happen. It is not so easy to change a regime, much less from head to toe as they surely deserve: even the bravest and most sustained popular action, such as we have witnessed in Egypt, Yemen or Syria, appears to have its limitations in the scope of what they can achieve in the short run. That is because the elites and their mercenaries are well armed and organized, including religious and also secular propaganda, while the people is not.

It was however when the class organizations, the unions, threatened with massive strikes that Mubarak was forced to pull out. So again we must not ignore the power of Class organization and the power of the general strike: because ultimately they need us, they need our work and we can totally disrupt the economy...

Or why not? Take over it and redirect it to other uses: expropriation is one step beyond strike and it'd be revolutionary at its best.

But let's focus on what has actually happened: after the Arab World, we saw Spaniards flooding out to the streets in Spring. That was totally unexpected because even if some of the socio-economic factors are comparable between North Africa and Spain (>40% youth unemployment notably) the purchasing level is without doubt much better this side of the Mediterranean.

We learned that the revolution has no borders

But there they were by the tens of thousands, taking over the plazas of all the state. And they were into that for months until the Christian-Fascist counter-demonstrations organized by Ratzinger the Horrible displaced them from one of their main strongholds: the Puerta del Sol of Madrid.

But the torch of revolution had not been turned off at all. What we saw then and next was most interesting: not just the Greek People, who have been bravely fighting nearly impossible battles against the abuse imposed by the Capitalist International, not just the Chilean students who have been burning the streets of Santiago all the year round in pursuit of free quality education for all, but we were able to witness, we are still able to witness today, even in the midst of Winter, the people of the largest global power: the United States of America, going out to the streets in large numbers and with even larger legitimacy.

That was almost unthinkable a year ago.

We learned that we have the power

They even managed to organize some semblance of general strike and stop harbors and such.

Not just that, as I said, protests have continued for months in spite of widespread repression and lack of any specific agenda.

This last is indeed a problem and a sign that the revolutionary movement is clearly immature. Some would say no, that no specific agenda can be imposed to such a wide movement. Well, I do not mean to "impose" anything but if something I know about human organization and struggles is that spontaneous-ism is not the way: it does not work but for very short periods.

Instead neighborhood assemblies and more political kind of organizations must be set up at some point. Not just that: they must become part of the daily reality.

I think that some of that will almost unavoidably follow in any case but of course nothing human happens "alone": it needs of conscious action.

We learned that there are still classes

Whatever the case, what the peoples of the World have achieved this year, out of just rage and good will almost alone, cannot be dismissed: tyrannical regimes have been shattered to the foundations, peoples who had almost lost all notion of being able to carry out huge and influential protests have got themselves to do them actively... some sort of very basic class consciousness has been achieved (the 99% vs the 1% is a very good conceptual approach).

Just that, of course, it is not enough: while the Emperor's ugly and violent nakedness is every day more obvious, his head is still on his shoulders and he even grows more arrogant and more violent at times. Eventually we will realize that more than just chants and camps are needed: that we do need of Mme. Guillotine and to impose the class-less order to the 1% with violence if need be.

Not yet maybe but at some point some heads will have to roll (literally or not, that's arguable or rather will be determined by the events themselves) if we truly want to make a change. Most critically the very concept of property has too be revised if we want to equalize society (and believe me: you and I want that very badly). By the moment the targets have been some of the most abusive forms of property like banks and corporations but the analysis and review has to be extended to even money itself (in the end just coupons issued by the state and distributed most unfairly).

But all this is left for the year and years to come. By the moment in 2011, huge steps have been made and that should not be ignored nor dismissed as unimportant: things won't be the same after this year... and in this case for good.

I have witnessed many unfinished peace processes in the past and never ever seen one when so few concessions were made by a state that almost seem to be begging ETA, with their acts and inaction, to retake armed struggle.

Other

Other hotspots of the year were the Neonazi-Zionist-Crusader massacre of Norway, the persistent state terrorism in Honduras, the continuity of Apartheid and genocide in Palestine under the name of Israel, the class conflict in South Asia under the banner of Maoism, the NATO intervention in Libya, the return to fascism in Ukraine, the London Riots, etc.

Friday, December 30, 2011

The neo-fascist FIDESZ party, which already approved this year extremist changes to the constitution of Hungary enshrining Christian religion, banning the right to abortion and restricting the rights of those that are different in one way or another, has now gone a step further in the way of Hitler's Final Solution by approving a law by which homeless people will be fined €600 (a huge amount of money in a poor country like Hungary, specially for a homeless: effectively not payable) and, if they cannot pay, thrown into prison.

Forget human rights, forget "European freedoms"... yet no political scandal ensues. The same that it does not when Nazis become ministers in Greece... the offcial consensus has changed: fascism is the new norm.

The Turkish military bombed a group that marched by the mountains: 35 people, some of them minors... smugglers... smugglers for whom that is their only income: poor Kurdish workers, citizens of Turkey only on the paper, in fact slaves of the new Ottoman Empire: members of an unrecognized nation, a problem that they don't want to solve but to annihilate.

Gara[es] discusses how the Turkish concept of terrorism is one of brushes, pencils, photographs, music art and culture, according to their Minister or Interior, or how now they want to identify the BDP with the PKK and therefore, ultimately, make every single Kurd a terrorist for the simple fact of being of that ethnicity.

Update: a video of the clashes that ensued as the Turkish police force repressed a Kurdish demonstration in Istanbul, in protest for this this massacre, can be found at Protestation.org.

Update (Dec 31st):

Gara[es] reports that the Communist Party of Kurdistan (PKK) has made an appeal for Northern Kurdistan to arise. Meanwhile the funerals for the victims of the massacre have become open demonstrations of anger against the Turkish authorities with direct threats against PM Erdogan being cried out.

One of the few survivors, Haci Encu, 19, narrated how they were about to cross the official border between Turkey and Iraq in order to buy sugar and gasoline, when they spotted the drones. As they were doing their normal journey, they did not expect any attack and did not look for refuge. That way the robot planes could murder 20 of them in the first attack easily.

Another survivor, Servet Encu, explained how they have to live on smuggling, risking their lives for just a bit of bread and butter. He claimed that the army knew perfectly that they were not guerrillas because that route is always used by civilians.

BDP leader Gultan Kisanak agreed with this idea and declared that it was an intentional massacre by which Ankara intends to send the following message to the Kurds: shut up and submit.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

The article is actually entitled "My present situation (from KS in Fukushima)" but this title does not capture at all the meaning of the letter: how he was hardly persuaded to evacuate after 3/11, how he had to leave beloved elderly people behind, how he gradually became aware of the outrageous fact of children were playing on the ground where radioactivity was very dangerous thanks to government's criminal negligence...

The explosions at the nuclear power plant right after 3.11 were a great shock to all of my family. The earthquake affected phone connectivity, but my father who lives away from us due to his work managed to contact us by phone. He told me, “Get your wife and child and run, right away!” I did not understand what he meant. I thought, “Why do we need to run, when the government is saying that it’s safe?”

We had a heated argument on the phone – It’s the only time I have been yelled at by my father since I became an adult. He said to me, “Look at the map!” Then I realized that the nuclear power plant was much closer to our home than I had thought. I realized how close it is to our home, although it felt so far away when I went there with my family in my childhood.

However, I could not convince myself to leave my mother and my grandparents behind. It is a natural thought because they are my family. But in reality, it was impossible — both of my grandparents are over 85 and they require nursing care. Evacuating could have made them ill, so we had to make a sad decision. They had to stay with my mother. When we were having this discussion, I saw my grandmother cry for the first time. Facing the reality that they could not evacuate, although they wanted to, left me feeling powerless. We packed our things with tears in our eyes.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

BUENOS AIRES, Dec 28, 2011 (IPS) - A judge in Argentina has begun to investigate human rights crimes committed during Spain's civil war and the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco (1936-1975).

This month, federal judge María Servini asked Spain for information on Spanish military officials, as part of a new investigation based on a lawsuit filed in April 2010 by human rights lawyers in Argentina in the name of relatives of victims of the Franco dictatorship.

The judge requested the names of military officers involved in the Franco regime; lists of victims of forced disappearance and summary execution; lists of children who were stolen from their parents during the dictatorship; and the names of companies that allegedly benefited from the forced labour of political prisoners.

Servini initially shelved the lawsuit, on the grounds that investigations had been opened in Spain. But the Cámara Federal, a second instance court, ordered her to investigate whether Spain's justice system was effectively taking action.

The case thus landed back in the hands of Servini who, invoking the principle of universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity, issued the request for a wide range of information, such as the addresses – or death certificates - of agents of the regime.

The human rights lawyers who brought the suit presented Servini with a new document in which they stress that, after 36 years of dictatorship and 36 years of democracy in Spain, "not only is there not even a truth commission, but not one single child has had his or her identity restored.

"The case was opened in Argentina because everything indicated that not even with a socialist government did the will exist for it to prosper there," one of the Argentine lawyers, Beinusz Szmukler, told IPS, referring to the government of socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (2004-Dec. 21, 2011).

Scores of ring seals are being washed on shore dead or severely ill. Researchers tried to find a virus but nothing has been found and the symptoms are much like those of radiation sickness: bleeding and skin damage as well as hair loss.

Radiation tests are ongoing but will not be available for several weeks (if ever).

I'd say that seals, who eat fish in the polluted North Pacific Ocean, are somewhat more susceptible than humans on shore, who may not rely only on fish. However the issue highlights the extreme severity and lack of any sort of borders of the unprecedented Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, no matter that the authorities (under pressure from the nuclear industry and the military) want to ignore the huge problem and even keep running ahead and building more and more nuclear holocaust devices (aka "power plants").

Update: seals show abnormal brain growths, undersized lymph nodes and white spots on liver. Walruses and ringed seals in (Eastern) Russia, as well ringed seals in (Western) Canada have been reported with similar symptoms. ··> Enenews, Environment News Service.

Related: radiation spikes in Western North America:

This is more or less coincident with the arrival of the tsunami debris from Japan, which may be radioactive. Fukushima Emergency, what can we do? reports spikes of 0.4, almost 0.5 in some cases, micro-sieverts scattered through the Western Coast of North America from Los Angeles to Canada. If exposed year-wide to such radiation levels, it is dangerous, very specially for children and teenagers.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

They were taking part in a charity concert for the orphans of the 2004 tsunami. Some 64 were arrested, forcibly shaven and sent to "moral reeducation". Not for any reason but their way of life.

Some of the arrested youths

Believe it or not, something very similar happened in the 80s here in Bilbao: when the town hall decided to raid the fiestas and forcibly wash and shave everyone sporting long hair or a mohawk. Many were seasonal vagabonds (whose arguable lack of hygiene was the pretext) but many other were just locals enjoying the holidays. Police made no distinctions and all were humiliated with an institutional shower and an undesired haircut.

Naturally, it is intolerable that in the name of Sharia or whatever other obsolete religious idiocy (oh, man, you just have to read a couple of lines from the Bible to have Yaveh demonstrated as silly farce!) normal decodifying Punk people are being abused and mistreated this way.

Sharia vs. Punk? Sharia loses for sure. It may take a few years however. So they better retreat to their temples of fear while they can.

We all have read or heard to pro-nuclear fanatics or mercenary pens that almost nobody died because of Chernobyl. Then realistic estimates in fact say millions and never mind the pain inflicted in so many families living in hazardous conurbations like Kiev.

We will have to hear the same for Fukushima: because people do not "die of radiation" but of some illness like leukemia or thyroid cancer or unexpected heart collapse or bleeding to death because your body can't repair the tissue anymore. For the same reason we could argue that people do not die of old age either. Of course it'd be absurd.

So take note: 14,000 in the USA and go figure how many in Japan, where no health surveys are conducted but peopleare dyingas we speak.

The Armenian genocide was real. Regardless of how many exactly were murdered, the Ottoman Empire deployed the same tactics of concentration camps invented by the British in South Africa, mind you and massive annihilation (democide and genocide) used by the Germans against the Herero people, by the USA and other creole states against Native Americans or by Russia against dissident minorities like the Cherkess.

In a sense it was nothing new but that does not mean it was not for real and that it raises our total rejection. It was also something of a level that has not been repeated since except for the Nazi-perpetrated genocide against Jews, Roma, etc.

There's little doubt about all this and all who go nit-picky are nothing but fascist ultra-nationalists, of the kind who dream with such a "glorious" fictitious history that they can admit to no errors nor abuses, or worse: that would like to repeat those crimes once and again and remain at large and still keep the fiction that there are no corpses in the closet of the fatherland.

On the other hand, punishing ideas is ridiculous and a double edged attack against freedom of thought and speech. I also disagree with punishing Holocaust negationists (a legal principle in much of Europe). Instead I would suggest to punish all those that conspire against human rights and civil liberties, so fascists can't stay at large, regardless of what they think or say about the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, etc.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

I'm taking a time out from this blog (although this does not preclude to write one or two articles meditating on this hyper-eventful year or maybe some breaking news that makes me jump on my chair). What I am definitely quitting is at to try to keep track and commenting or even just mentioning of every other protest, killing, war or revolution around. It is impossible for me to keep track, much less at the speed and intensity of today's events. I will ponder what I want to do with this blog and certainly I welcome suggestions. Thanks.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Have you read or heard about this in the mainstream media? Not me. I just found out thanks to a Spanish-language blog: Disidente del Capitalismo, which I happen to follow.

In the context of the growing student revolt that engulfs Latin America (largely driven by the attempt by the states ruled by the right to make education more costly and elitist), the police forces of Guerrero state attacked rioting students with live fire killing three students (two on the spot and a third one who died later at hospital) and brutally beating many many others, who surrendered to police terror.

Video in Spanish with images of the violence (from the side of the police):

Monday, December 12, 2011

Heiner Flassbeck was deputy of Oskar Lafontaine, when this one was briefly Minister of Finances of the Federal Republic. He now speaks out his mind on why the euro experiment has gone awry. He does not blame Southern Europe but rather German selfishness and failed neocolonial experiments.

Surviving Japan is the title of a documentary by Chris Nolan, who volunteered to help in the aftermath of the massive earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe that devastated NE Honshu just nine months ago. This is a short preview:

As Ex-SKF says, this documentary will not be promoted at all by media or institutions, so we better do it ourselves.

I also thought that all the weekly news about Fukushima may well get weekly coverage in this blog separated from the rest of events, specially when the news, comments and rumors pile up as has been the case these last weeks, as more and more people is realizing worldwide how bad the Fukushima catastrophe is, how much out of any sort of control is and will be in the future, with an uncontrolled China syndrome and permanent emission of radioactive materials to the atmosphere and ocean, and how much the Japanese authorities have lied and keep lying in a desperate effort to avoid any responsibility before their citizens and before the World.

So here there are the news that have accumulated this past week, not just for Japan but also for other states, like China or the USA:

Fuku-leaks: leaking death to the environment and your body since March 2011:

Friday, December 9, 2011

After a short wave at the beginning of the century, instances of proletarians taking their bosses hostage or threatening to blow up their factories reappeared in 2009, and have since become something of a trend. We can now count as many as twenty cases since the beginning of 2010.

What took place at Siemens is quite representative of the context in which such struggles emerge. In September 2009, the management of this metallurgical engineering company announced 470 redundancies at the Montbrisson site and the outright closure of the Saint-Chamond site. In keeping with an agreement signed on the 12th of February the trade-unions prepared a counter-proposal to save jobs, but the negotiations came to nothing. “The management no longer listens” one employee noted. The workers then organised demonstrations, blocked the motorways, and went on strike at the Montbrisson site, but these efforts were fruitless. Then on Monday the 1st of March 2010, the employees at the site of Saint-Chamond took two of the group’s executives hostage in order to force the resumption of negotiations. The employees announced the actions were “mandated by all of the staff”, in response to “the blockage of all negotiations”. Reached by telephone the executives taken hostage described their situation in the following manner : “[The employees] have let us know that we are going to be held for as long as there has not been the progress in the negotiations that they wish to see, especially over the increase in compensation beyond the legal minimum for those who have been discharged.” After being locked up for one night they were released and the following day an agreement with management was reached. It confirmed the closure of one of the sites, reduced the number of jobs that will be cut and accepted an increase in compensation from 35,000 to 45,000 euros.

Cases of threats to blow up the factory have also been repeated in 2010, following the example of New Fabris the year before, a struggle which enabled the employees to receive a compensation over the legal minimum of 12 000 euros. This method was used in 2010 at Sodimatex, an automotive equipment manufacturer, and the same month also at the Brodard Graphique printing house and at Poly Implant Prothèse, a manufacturer of breast implants, where on the 12 of April 2010 the employees threatened to set the premises on fire. Eric Mariaccia, a representative of the CFDT union, stated the following : “We have made Molotov cocktails and placed highly flammable products at the site’s entrance.” The workers also spilled several thousand prosthesis in front of the site and set fire to tyres.

Even-though the usage of such methods seems unthinkable in other western countries, in France they are considered acceptable by a large proportion of the population.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

At the moment I am unable to precise the details but it seems that one of the most celebre political prisoners in the USA, Mumia Abu Jamal, framed for the killing of a white policeman four decades ago, will not be executed.

The state attorneys have decided not to seek death penalty anymore but a life sentence remains.

However there are way too many people who understand that the evidence was framed so a black political active person would be imprisoned and possibly killed fro something he did not do. A very similar case is that of Native American leader Leonard Peltier.

You can read the reaction of South African religious leader Desmond Tutu at Prison Radio and listen to the reaction of Mumia himself in this radio interview, where he denounces that a million people are in prison in the USA, the largest apportion worldwide by far.

Recently a campaign of solidarity with him was launched[eu] in my hometown:

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

In yet another step towards the total militarization of what was once described as the US aircraft carrier in Central America, the dictatorial regime of Porfirio Lobo decreed yesterday to give full police functions to the Army on the pretext of fighting crime.

While the decree is for just 90 days, all relevant ministers are already speaking of perpetuating this state of exception. Security Minister Pompeyo Bonilla announced that they will probably extend the decree before it expires, maybe making it an indefinite feature of the Honduran dictatorship:

For me 90 days are not enough. We need at least 10 years to solve this problem we have in Honduras.

The massive electoral fraud has not convinced anyone it seems. The Communists specially, who were persuaded of having more popular support than Putin's conservative-fascist United Russia party, according to pre-election polls and previous electoral results, have been leading the protests against massive vote rigging through the huge North Eurasian state.

Whatever the case, such a sudden and numerous protest in the center of Moscow is rare and the strong collapse of United Russia's reported votes, even after electoral fraud, is a clear sign that the iron grip of Putin is weakening.

This is getting strangely funny, the self-proclaimed rulers of our lives, the self-proclaiming "rating agencies" located overseas, have gone on rampage of downgrade warnings through Europe. Not even Germany or, say, Finland, have been spared.

Of course, I understand that it is about time for European governments of all colors to face the dictatorship of the Bankster Mafia and downgrade the downgraders. States do NOT need credit: they can print their own money and they can nationalize banks and companies at whim, and so can the EU as a whole if its members could even get their act together and their leaders had even a minimal commitment to their own dignity.

Under the pressure of the so called "markets" (the Bankster Mafia) European Peoples have been accruing unbelievable and unnecessary sacrifices: it is more than due the time of declaring external bankruptcy, monetizing domestic debt and nationalizing all banks.

Otherwise it will be this torture day after day, week after week with no end in sight: because the IMF "remedy" is actually worsening the illness.

Because of the importance of the revelation, I copy here what Mochizuki explains literally:

A computer engineer found out operating system of Fukushima plants have been attacked, and those attacks were mostly from / via Russia. This engineer is counted as one of the members of Fukushima 50.

They installed the system about 6 years ago. It means, someone / some organizations have been attacking the system since 6 years ago.

The engineer was called by JP government on 3/14/2011.He was the developer of the system in Fukushima. He was in Tokyo,but taken to Fukushima plants by the helicopter of Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. His mission was to reboot the auto operating system and re-start it as manual mode.

Because the system was shut down after black out ,they could not operate the systems to control the pressure ,water injecting ,radiation shield etc. and that must be done by him.

He managed to reboot the system and restart it in a manual mode ,but he encountered series of troubles such as password entry screen did not come out or his password entering was disturbed by compute bug.He sorted it out by formatting the system but it was obvious that someone sent virus to the system.

He tried to send virus backward. and it reached to Russia. Someone sent virus from or via Russia.

He asked to staff from JP government about what is going on ,but they did not tell him anything in the name of “confidential”.

Now, the question is: the virus arrived via Russia, alright, but could it be a random (or even intentionally directed) copy of Stuxnet, the infamous Zionist-Pentagon virus that targeted Siemens computers used in nuclear facilities in so many different countries, notably Iran, and rumored to have been used by several Japanese nuclear facilities, including Fukushima Daiichi? It looks reasonably likely.

Are Japanese accidental victims of the cyber-war against Iranian nuclear facilities? Are French, Russian and other facilities also exposed? Was the virus just an extra problem in the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, which would have happened without it? Or was it a necessary element in the chain of events that caused the worst nuclear disaster ever? Has the USA (and Israel) nuked Japan again by accident?

Their aim is to expose how vulnerable they are: if a bunch of nonviolent activists can get into them without being detected, what can't terrorist groups or secret services do?

Earlier today it became known that they had infiltrated the nuclear power plant of Nogent-sur-Seine, near Paris, and reached the dome to paint a warning sign on it, however they were intercepted before they could finish.

However, according to Basque newspaper Gara[es], Greenpeace announced that several other nuclear facilities had been infiltrated successfully and challenge the authorities to find them, denouncing that nuclear security exists just on paper.

Greenpeace has created a live blog page (in French) for the public to follow this multiple action. The page has links to other sources and videos.

Latest (AFP) was the rather reluctant and ashamed acknowledgement by Claude Guéant, Minister of Industry, of the vulnerability of the installations, while the always arrogant President Sarkozy only focused on the alleged irresponsibility of the Greenpeace activists and not his own by allowing this danger on the French and European Peoples and all Humankind.

France is the only state on Earth that relies seriously on nuclear energy. In all other states nuclear power generates at most a small fraction of the electricity output, being kept for military reasons mostly, but in France it is close to 80%.

This morning at dawn, Greenpeace activists broke into the nuclear power plant in Nogent-sur-Seine (Aube) 95 kilometers southeast of Paris to carry this message: "Nuclear power is not safe". Edit at 7:30: the activists managed to climb the dome of one of the two reactors are in the process of painting the danger sign it.

This action shows how the French nuclear power plants are vulnerable: simple activists with pacifist intentions, succeeded, with little means, to reach the heart of a nuclear plant! Why? How? Because the existing security features are inadequate!

And yet ... The audit of nuclear facilities sponsored by the government after the disaster at Fukushima does not take into account the risk of human intrusion ...

That's why Greenpeace is calling on the government to expand the scope of the audit of the French nuclear facilities by integrating all the risks.

An incomplete audit!

The completion of the audit commissioned by the French government was entrusted to the nuclear operators themselves (CEA, Areva and EDF) and it will be analyzed by the Nuclear Safety Authority by the end of the year . The audit, conducted entirely within the French nuclear consortium, merely to study the problems related to natural events (earthquakes, floods ...). Risk of terrorism, plane crash, computer virus: no risk of external aggression of origin "unnatural" was taken into account.

In a report commissioned by Greenpeace and released in January Arjun Makhijani, independent Indian expert, chairman of the research institute on energy and the environment of Maryland (USA), analyzed this way the French nuclear audit: From the point of view of the causes and course of the accident, it is not relevant to limit the analysis of initiating events only to natural phenomena (earthquakes and floods). The risks of human origin should, in a process of comprehensive review of safety, be included in this analysis. This applies, at least, to accidental causes, and should even include malicious acts.

Security plans... impressive on paper!

The government, in charge of security of nuclear sites, claims to have plans for all events to secure the French Atomic Park, as the intervention of fighters maximum in 15 minutes on all nuclear sites, the continued presence of a special platoon of the Gendarmerie at each site, air radar devices for detections above certain facilities, a double electric fence and video surveillance around each site, a restricted airspace above the sites or access subject to "special permission" ...

But in spite of these "exceptional" measures worthy of the best action movies, the Greenpeace activists showed today that the French nuclear installations are very fragile. That's probably why the non-natural external risks are not included in the audit. If they would, no installation could be declared safe!

Update:

Two banners were hang outside two other nuclear power plants in France (Chinon in northwestern France and Blayais in the southwest) while another activist cell was removed from the nuclear plant of Cadarache, in the Southeast, according to Electricité de France (EDF), as reported by Al Jazeera.

An hour ago, at 21:10 CET (20:00 GMT), two more Greenpeace activists were arrested inside the Cruas power plant, in a region (the middle Rhône banks) that holds one of the highest density of nuclear facilities on Earth.

40 minutes later Greenpeace France closed its live blog acknowledging that all activists had finally been arrested.

For almost a whole day at least two people camped on their own inside a French nuclear central undetected, while at least one other plant was also penetrated.

Actually, in spite of the title, this article is mostly about uncovering a sabotage attack by CIA (or Mossad) against the Iranian nuclear program last Nov. 28th than discussing the almost obsessive (but typically empty) threat of a most unlikely war with Iran. It is anyhow full of information from various sources and hence well worth a careful read.

Amid conflicting reports that a huge explosion at Iran's uranium conversion facility in Isfahan occurred last week, speculation was rife that Israel and the United States were stepping-up covert attacks against defense and nuclear installations.

The Isfahan complex transforms mined uranium into uranium fluoride gas which is then "spun" by centrifuges that enrich it into usable products for medical research and for Iran's civilian nuclear energy program.

While Iranian officials sought to distance themselves from initial reporting by the semi-official Fars news agency that a "loud explosion" was heard across the city, but that "the sound of the explosion was from [a] military exercise," has been contradicted by several sources.

Indeed, some Iranian officials have denied that an explosion even took place.

Arguably, what has been more striking this week is the widespread acknowledgement of the fact of Fukushima Daiichi being in China syndrome phase (or almost so for the more optimistic ones) as something way too real to ignore and way too powerful to deal with. It began on Wednesday and was very explicit by the next day or so, only to decay as the weekend set in: